IND vs AUS: Former Indian fast bowler Venkatesh Prasad has once again targeted out-of-form Indian opener KL Rahul. Prasad, who has been vocal about Rahul's struggle to score runs in recent times, has now targeted his overseas performance. Prasad has also hoped for the opener to perform in India vs Australia's third Test in Indore.
The former Indian bowler has come out to be a strong critic of Rahul, who is underfiring in recent outings for India. Rahul has four tons in SENA countries and is the third visiting opener in the world to have tons in Australia, South Africa and England. But he averages around 30 away from home and Prasad targeted this in his recent tweets.
Prasad said that Rahul's average in 56 overseas innings is nearly 30 and has followed his tons with a string of low scores. "There is a view that KL Rahul has an outstanding overseas Test record. But stats speak otherwise. He has a test avg of 30 overseas in 56 innings. He has scored 6 overseas centuries but followed it up with a string of low scores that’s why averaging 30. Let’s look at a few others," he wrote on Twitter.
Notably, the former Indian bowler compared Rahul's numbers with Rahane's stats. "And if overseas performance is a criteria, Ajinkya Rahane despite being out of form and also inconsistent before being dropped had one of the best overseas Test records, averaging over 40 overseas in 50 test matches. Was out of form and dropped," he added.
Prasad also hoped for the Indian opener to bounce back in the third Test in Indore. "But with KL being retained for the remaining 2 test matches, if he is picked in the playing 11, Indore is his best chance of coming back to form and silencing critics like me. Else needs to play county cricket, perform well and make a comeback in the Test side," he said.
The 30-year-old Rahul has made just 38 runs in the three innings in the first two test matches against Australia. Rahul last scored fifty 11 innings back against South Africa in Johannesburg. His last hundred came 13 innings back against in Centurion.
